Consumption is the lifeblood of the major economies of the world. Consumption requires the acquisition of the products and services. These acquisitions occur between consumers and merchants (entities that own the desired goods and services) through transactions in which there is an exchange of a medium (usually currency) from the buyer to the merchant for commodities valuable to the merchant. The transaction is known as a sale. In a typical sale, the merchant displays their items for sale. This display contains the purchase price for which a merchant will sell (transfer) the item to the prospective buyer.
Today's consumer has many choices in almost every product and service that they purchase. The average consumer makes many daily decisions on technology, entertainment, travel, transportation, telecommunications, personal care products, financial services, foods and beverages. Consumers want to make sure that they are making good purchases according to their own preferences in the areas of quality and value. Also some consumers like to vote with their dollars by supporting goods and services that conform to personalized ideals that may include employee demographics, treatment of employees, environmental friendliness, and good corporate citizenship in the eyes of the law. However, the vast number of companies and products available makes this research for every purchase unmanageable.
One alternative solution that exists is brand recognition. Consumers put their faith in brand names have served them well in the past. The problem with this solution is as companies merge, brands expand their product line and the qualities associated with a brand may not apply across the entire product or service.
A second alternative solution is the creation of materials that are designed to assist the consumer in learning more about particular products and services. One major consumer assistance mechanism comprises print media such as magazines and newspapers that address consumer issues. A problem with this solution is it is manual process that does not make the information available on demand for each purchase. These publications have articles that comment on the quality of certain products. Many of these publications have critics that review various products and rate these products based on a set of established criteria. In addition, to the printed publications, some agencies actually perform tests on the quality of certain products. The automobile industry is an example of an area where agencies perform various tests on the products. These tests include reliability tests and safety tests. These agencies then publish the results of these tests to inform the public about these tested products. Furthermore, consumer ‘watchdog’ groups also evaluate various products in order to assure that these products perform as advertised.
A problem with these solutions is that they are manual processes that do not make the information available on demand for each purchase. Currently, the consumer has to read the information and remember or note various evaluations of various products in which the consumer has interest. In addition, the information in many of these resources is general to the public which requires the consumer to interpret these results in view of the individual's own personal preferences.
There remains a need for a method and system that can provide a consumer with immediate information on a particular product of interest and in accordance with the personal preferences of the requesting consumer. This invention is for a mechanism to make this possible.